Yanks Team Up with Cisco

From CNN:

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced that the new Yankee Stadium, set to open April 2009, has been outfitted with state-of-the-art Cisco® technologies, giving New York Yankees fans the most wired, connected and video-enabled stadium in all of baseball. A new Cisco technology called Cisco StadiumVision(TM) will be central to the fan experience at the ballpark, providing fans with the most technologically advanced game-day experience in baseball, while maximizing the great historical tradition of the Yankees organization.

Cisco will work with the New York Yankees to enhance the way fans enjoy Yankees games and other events by making the experience more interactive, personalized and immersive.

StadiumVision will allow the Yankees to cost-effectively deliver live game video and customized content to each video monitor, addressing the unique needs of each stadium location at each game or event. All monitors will be capable of delivering content in HD video.

Some of the key new amenities that Cisco and the Yankees are bringing to Yankees fans in the new stadium include:

-- Yankees Fan Amenities: For all Yankees fans who don't want to miss a moment of on-field action, Cisco will provide the live game broadcast on HD video monitors displayed throughout the stadium, including concession areas, the Great Hall, the Yankees Museum and other in-stadium restaurant and bar locations. Along with the live game broadcast, monitors will be capable of simultaneously providing up-to-date sports scores, Yankees trivia, news and weather from a single viewing screen. At the conclusions of games, these monitors will allow the Yankees the ability to direct patrons to the nearest exits and provide up-to-the-moment traffic information. In the event of an emergency, all stadium monitors can be immediately and uniformly mobilized to display evacuation instructions. On non-game days, these same monitors can be used to display customized content and information for special events such as conferences, weddings and other group activities.
-- Premium Luxury Fan: Premium luxury suites will be outfitted with touch-screen Internet Protocol (IP) phones that will allow fans to order concessions and Yankees merchandise for delivery to the suite.
-- Fans of the Future: Cisco and the New York Yankees have also kept an eye toward the future to ensure that the stadium remains state-of-the-art for years to come. For example, the new stadium is equipped to support future fan use of mobile devices for ordering concessions from their seat, viewing instant replays or chatting in real time with friends inside and outside the stadium. In addition, the stadium has the capability to allow fans to communicate with players before or after the game using interactive video-based technology.

All these new technologies at the new place will be pretty cool, and the place will certainly be a state-of-the-art stadium of the future. But as I've said many times, I just hope it's as good as the stadium of the past that we're leaving.